The Raleigh Telegram
By Olivia Barrow

RALEIGH – With the U.S. Senate preparing to overhaul the nation’s food safety laws through a bill that passed committee called the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (S510), Senator Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) has co-sponsored an amendment to exempt small farmers from the added safety requirements of the bill.

The terms of Hagan’s amendment are still in flux, but Hagan said she is committed to ensuring that North Carolina’s family farms are not subject to additional and unnecessary layers of federal regulation.

In its current form, the bill will require the Food and Drug Administration to create new regulations about the production of fruits, vegetables and nuts. The FDA guidelines would not regulate meat and poultry production.

The primary goals of the new regulations are the prevention of problems and the ability to trace a contaminated food back to the field it was grown in within 48 hours.

In order to achieve the rigorous traceability goals, the Food and Drug Administration will have to increase requirements for recordkeeping, which will cost farmers time and money. Read Full Article »

GMO Journal

Consumer Beware: the next generation of biotech crops focus directly on you. Unlike most of GM crops currently on the market, which are genetically altered to be herbicide and pesticide resistant, the new generation of GM crops are designed to express alleged nutritional benefits. Focusing on soybean oil — the fastest way to reach the broadest number of consumers because of its ubiquitous presence in many foods — biotech companies are mutating seeds used to produce oil designed to express various types of “nutritional” benefits. Read Full Article »

Wausau native pens book, promotes sustainable food practices

Wausau Daily Herald
Keith Uhlig

Many people become immersed in the organic food movement because they are interested in nutrition, health and diet.

Wausau native Temra Costa came to it from an environmental angle. Growing up mostly in the town of Stettin, the 1997 graduate of Wausau West High School appreciated the rolling hills and open fields of the area. But she didn’t make a connection between the land and food, or even give much thought to it. Read Full Article »

Capital Press
ROBIN HINDERY, Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — It’s been barely a year since Luis Miranda began selling organic produce at farmers markets near his home in California’s Central Valley, but he’s already seen every trick in the book.

Scanning the stands recently at a market in downtown Sacramento, Miranda pointed out a half-dozen examples of misleading signs and labels. One of the most common tricks is posting a banner with the California Certified Farmers’ Markets seal — which closely resembles the marks bestowed by state-recognized organic certifiers, but means only that the produce was grown by the farmer selling it.

“You see banners that say ‘certified’ or ‘pesticide-free,’ and it’s either not true or it doesn’t mean what customers think it means,” Miranda said. “I see farmers do it all the time, and it hurts real organic farmers like me.” Read Full Article »

Triple Pundit.com
Leon Kaye

In a doomed marketing move that some would find cheeky and others, deceitful, a Safeway store in Kirkland, Washington, decided to sell its fruits and vegetables “farmer-market” style. A huge yellow banner announced the new parking lot market, and tents were set up to greet weekend shoppers.

No word yet whether the employees had to get up at 3:00 a.m. to drive to work for those Saturday morning affairs, wear funny hats, or bellow out “farm-fresh, $2 a pound here!”

Unfortunately for the marketing guru who planned this event, the manager of the nearby Redmond Saturday Market, Martha Tyler, happened to drive by a few days before, and in a pique of curiosity, asked which farmers would sell at the market, and then the truth came out . . . Read Full Article »